Interesting figure that comes out of the article: 87% of US teens prefer iPhones. Also the explanations given aren't quite surprising, I guess it's mostly because of iMessage. Teens will feel like outcasts if they get an Android phone while their friends still use iMessage because of the green bubbles.
It's actually hilarious how we allowed consumerism to take us this far and that we have now peer pressure over smartphones.
“You’re telling me in 2023, you still have a ’Droid? [...] You gotta be at least 50 years old.”
You just listed mostly things that already exist with sms or should exist as a standard and some of them, Google has tried with RCS but companies like apple actively refuses adoption. Yeah, you can install apps but ideally you'd not be required to, it would be a choice. Sending a text message ought to be a standard process. This is a lot of hate for the idea of standards dude.